If it doesn’t connect back to the brand, it doesn’t matter how big the idea is: Liz Taylor

Ogilvy has been crowned Network of the Year across Asia, Latin America and North America, marking a standout global performance. Neeta Nair, Editor, IMPACT Magazine, speaks with Liz Taylor, Global Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy, and Kainaz Karmakar, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy India, on Ogilvy’s strong Cannes showing, the shifting meaning of innovation, and India’s rising creative voice.

Excerpts:

Cannes has always been an incredible playground for Ogilvy, both globally and in India. While the network continues to shine globally, would you say India has taken a slight backseat this year?

Liz: No, I would not say that. We are beating the drum from every region. There’s incredible work coming from our biggest brands. We also had an amazing moment on stage where, for the first time, India had its first female Jury President. The work is spectacular, and we all feel Piyush’s spirit is with us. I do not feel that India has taken a backseat. I don’t know if you feel differently, but I don’t.

Ogilvy has always been one of the top scorers from India. Even this year, you are. But is it less satisfying considering the number of medals? And it’s not just for Ogilvy; it’s for the whole country. What do you think has really gone wrong?

Kainaz: It’s been bittersweet, and I’ll tell you why. First of all, we missed the gold. There’s no running away from that. As a country, we don’t have a gold metal. As yet, I don’t know what’s going to happen today, but we don’t have gold yet.

I’ll tell you the sweet part, though. We won a Silver for Colgate with ‘Indianis Dentris’, and it is Colgate India’s first Lion. Yesterday, we had a workshop with them, and they were thrilled about it. They’re really excited to do more work like that.

Then there’s ‘Renu vs the City’, which is such a low-budget piece of work. For the second year in a row, St. Jude’s has made its mark at Cannes in Writing. Previously, it was ‘The Impossible Choice’, and now it’s ‘Renu vs the City’. It’s made on such a small budget, yet the work has made a true difference in India, and it’s winning at Cannes. So, for us, there is a sweet part as well.

Liz: Cannes is never the goal for us. It’s always a happy outcome if we win. So, when you asked me at the beginning, I felt the work was spectacular for the biggest clients in our biggest markets. For me, that’s the win. Cannes is the icing on the cake if and when we win.

So, we’re not judging whether the work coming out of India, or any other region, is declining in any way. That’s what I would say about that.

Every country has a certain perception in the jury room. India, for instance, is often associated with large societal issues like poverty, hygiene or population. Do campaigns addressing these challenges have a better chance of winning because they fit that perception? Or should India focus more on smaller, niche problems, as many Western campaigns do?

Liz: At the end of the day, the key is having the best insights that truly connect the brand to the consumer. Then, obviously, there’s the cultural context of wherever the work is going to play, and that factors into it.

But no brand should do something that has no relevance to them just because it’s an issue or a problem in their market. It still has to connect back to their purpose and what they do.

The responsibility of the jury room is to understand what the business problem was, what the insight was, the strategy behind it, what they were trying to achieve, and whether they achieved it. Then they consider the cultural nuances.

That’s why, for the most part, Cannes does a pretty good job of having a diverse jury, so different perspectives are represented. Someone can always say, “Let me explain this,” if others don’t fully understand the case or aren’t aware that it’s an issue in that particular market.

The Heinz ketchup campaign is a good example. It’s based on a human behaviour insight: when you get a serving of fries on the go, where do you put the ketchup? It solved an interesting consumer need and probably a frustration they uncovered through social listening.

On the other hand, you have something like hair discrimination laws in the U.S., which Dove addressed. That’s an issue specific to the U.S., but it still connects back to Dove’s purpose of real beauty. Ultimately, it always has to tie back to the client, their purpose, and their business objectives.

Kainaz: I agree 100%. Take two very different examples from India this year. ‘Indianis Dentris’ is not only fresh and creative, but it also comes from a fresh brief. I don’t see any other campaign tackling the fact that people in India don’t throw away their toothbrushes until they’re really old and almost worn out. That’s where the idea came from.

Then, at the other end, there’s ‘Renu vs the City’ for St. Jude’s. It’s a very different brief, but one that is completely relevant to the client. A lot of people come to Mumbai for cancer treatment, but then they have to fight the city itself. There’s no place to stay, and it’s a very expensive city. The client has a right to play in that space, and that’s why they’re playing there.

If we do something that isn’t relevant to the client we’re working with, it won’t work. So, we are very, very conscious of that.

Taking a step back, Rob mentioned that with WPP Creative’s new structure and a single P&L, you and Debbie Vandeven are collaborating more closely than ever. What does that collaboration look like in practice? How do Ogilvy and VML complement each other, particularly in markets like India?

Liz: Let me take this one. First, I just want to be clear that it’s not an integration. We’re not integrating the agencies. It’s more about the back end.

VML and Ogilvy remain separate brands. The idea is simply to make it easier to work together and share talent where needed, particularly around capabilities one network may not have. For example, commerce currently sits within VML.

We already work this way on global clients like SCJ, where Ogilvy leads the brand work, and VML leads the commerce work. But it’s one team. From the client’s perspective, they may not even know who’s from Ogilvy and who’s from VML. That’s the purpose—to make things easier for clients. It’s not about blending Ogilvy and VML.

In some ways, we share efficiencies, but we’re not getting rid of the brands. We’re not changing that. We’re rooting for each other. I just wanted to make that clear because a lot of people think it’s all going to become WPP Creative and the individual brands will disappear, or that one network is better than another. We all win when we all win. I’d say that about the industry as a whole—a rising tide lifts all boats. The more everyone succeeds, the better we all are.

I just wanted to set that straight because I’m not going to ask Kainaz to comment on why VML. VML is good. We’re all good.

Kainaz: I agree that WPP Creative has happened, but we’re very aware that the brands are not merging, as Liz said. Having said that, Kalpesh is a friend. Babita is a friend. If we have to work together and build integrated teams for certain clients, I don’t think that should be a problem.

Take Colgate, for example. We handle certain parts of the business, while VML handles commerce and some of the digital work.

And when it comes to creativity, Kalpesh Patankar has made a huge difference. The ‘KitKat Lowest Vending Machine’ and the ‘Kolhapuri’ campaign are such good pieces of work. I know they didn’t convert here, but they were shortlisted, and they are absolutely brilliant pieces of work. We’re very, very proud of that.

Clients still often split their mandates across different agencies—for creative, media, commerce and content. As agencies move towards more integrated ways of working, how do you convince clients to move away from that siloed approach?

Liz: I don’t think that’s new. Clients have structured their businesses that way for a long time. Whenever we show up as Ogilvy, we bring the best of our thinking, and that tends to be integrated. We start with cultural insights, solve the business problem, and then think about how the idea can travel across different touchpoints.

At the same time, we know how to work with partner agencies. We recently won a big pitch where the client still separated different mandates, and that’s okay. At the end of the day, our clients need to succeed, so it doesn’t help if we can’t figure out how to work together.

But we’ll always show up as Ogilvy. We’ll never come in just to make a film because that’s what the client asked for. We want to solve a bigger business problem, and that requires every part of the funnel to work together.

Being a jury president was a big honour for India, it was a big honour for Ogilvy and you, of course. Tell us something that transpired in that jury room, which made you change the way you’re going to approach your case studies in future. Maybe the top three things that you’re going to put in now, which you didn’t do earlier.

Kainaz: The first thing is that if your work is rooted in a deep cultural truth, you have to make that cultural context extremely clear in your case study. If people don’t understand it, they’ll keep wondering what’s happening and why. Sometimes jurors have time to read the written submission, but sometimes they don’t. Even before the jury room, there’s the shortlisting stage, where no one is there to explain the work. So the case study has to do that on its own.

The second thing is craft. This applies to the work itself, but also to the case study. How you show up makes a difference. One great example this year was Kotex’s ‘Art’s Missing Period.’ The music, editing, supers—everything in the case study was beautifully crafted.

The third learning is that you have to be bulletproof. We paused several cases in the Health & Wellness jury to ask, “How is this backed up by science?” We had a juror from a hospital with a strong medical background who would ask for clinical evidence. In some cases, the findings didn’t match what was presented, and the work suffered.

So, if you’re putting results in your case study, don’t assume the jury will simply take your word for it.

I was speaking to Devika Bulchandani, and she described Ogilvy as a ‘boomerang’ agency where people leave and often come back. What, in your experience, truly separates Ogilvy from other agencies you’ve worked with?

Liz: One thing I always say is that when I was at Ogilvy previously, I saw two things. When they recruited me, while I was there, and when I left, they treated me the same. They wooed me when they recruited me, they championed me when I was there, and when I left, they still rooted for me. That feeling doesn’t exist in many other places. Often, when you leave, there’s a sense of spite. At Ogilvy, you’re treated the same at every step.

The other thing is that there is no global network that is truly as borderless. Our worldwide creative council meets every Tuesday. We know each other, we root for each other, we help each other, we share talent, and we exchange ideas. We are builders of ‘yes, and’ rather than being competitive with each other. That doesn’t exist elsewhere.

It was also the place where I felt the most like myself. That’s hard to explain, but I felt I could be my true self more than anywhere else I’ve worked. I wasn’t putting on a facade of leadership or saying what a leader is ‘supposed’ to say. I could just be myself, and I felt safe. When that happens, you thrive.

You feel people are rooting for you. There’s not a lot of politics. It always felt like home. People around me knew that. I’d constantly stop myself from quoting David Ogilvy— ‘hire giants’—I was always doing that.

So, it always felt like home. I don’t know how else to explain it, but other people could see it too. Coming back felt like a pinch-me moment. I still can’t believe I have this role. I will never take it for granted. I genuinely think I have the greatest job in the world, surrounded by Ogilvy giants who truly root for each other. It’s a very different spirit from anywhere else I’ve worked. I could honestly do a TED Talk on it.

We’ve often heard that innovation and technology used to come from the West, and India would adopt it later. Has that changed in recent years? Would you say India is now also setting trends that the world follows?

Kainaz: I’ll speak for India, not just Ogilvy. Starting with Ogilvy, ‘Shah Rukh Khan-My-Ad’ is a great example of innovative use of machine learning and personalisation at scale. At that time, people were talking about machine learning and personalisation, but ‘Shah Rukh Khan-My-Ad’ showed how it is done. It became an iconic piece of work. It didn’t win last year, but ‘Garuda Rakshak’ from India was nominated on the innovation shortlist, so we are right there.

Going further back, even low-tech ideas have been true innovations. ‘Savlon Chalks’ in 2018, where soap was integrated into chalks, is one example. At that time, I didn’t even know if innovation existed as a category, or maybe we didn’t participate in it because we didn’t win. But in 2018, we innovated that and won everything. That is innovation—technology can also be in the chemistry of the product itself.

This year, we are very proud of ‘Number Rakshak’, the Guardian Beads. Again, a very low-tech innovation, but it won at Clio and didn’t win here. Still, we are extremely proud of it because it truly changed how people can be found if they are lost. It’s a meaningful, real-world innovation.